Working Mom of Three, History Buff, Writer, World of Warcraft Addict. . .My Comments on My Crazy Life.

Hello there, Blog-world. Remember me? Probably not. It’s been a little while since I’ve posted, but there was a few things that kept me from posting. We had a holiday, I went out of town for almost a week for that holiday. Then, when I came home, we had a blizzard. Now, for people with normal jobs, that means more time at home. But, not for me. I work for a call center that handles Roadside Service for two states. That means I spent long hours telling people, “No, we can’t get a tow truck up your hill to pull you out of your driveway.” I really wish North Carolina would put the money into clearing roads that other states do—like, say, West Virginia. On the way home from my Mother’s house, we passed no less than 7 plows salting the roads proactively. Ahhh! I wish North Carolina was that forward-thinking.
Okay, this isn’t a “complain about the government” site, this is a “talk about World of Warcraft” site. I have some free time this morning because the WoW server is broken. It’s been broken since last night, actually. But, last night wasn’t as bad because I could get on. Oh, hubby had issues with slow logins, and I felt sorry for him, but I got on with only one small hiccup. Today, we’ve flip-flopped. I am listening to his Warlock drive around Undercity on his motorcycle, and I have to sit. . . waiting until the server decides I’m worthy enough to play.
Hey, I’ve been a good girl today! I have cleaned the house, ran the sweeper, loaded the dishwasher, and washed a load of laundry. I did all of this before I tried to log on, just getting my house in order before I spent several hours on a computer leveling my Druid and Paladin. The server just does not see fit to let me on. I guess it thinks I should do something else, like mop a floor or something. Maybe then I’d deserve playtime?
I went on the Blizzard Technical Support Forums to see when they thought they’d have it fixed. There are posts after posts of people complaining about how they have been robbed of their precious play-time. They pay a monthly subscription fee to play, and now that they have a day off from work, Blizzard is taking a long time fixing the login problems. Even worse—the server that is affected is the one for people with Authenticators. People who use Account Authenticators have paid about $7.50 to protect their accounts from hackers and gold-thieves. Blizzard encourages the use of Authenticators, and now their use is keeping players from logging on. It almost feels like a double slap to our playing egos.
There are a few players on the Community Forums who are suggesting we disable our authenticators to log on again. I hope no one takes this advice seriously. The gold thieves would love for us to delete our authenticators so they could rob our banks and our guilds’ banks. We even make it easier for them by posting we’re doing that on the Community Forum. You might as well post in huge, block letters, “Dear hackers, hit me first!”
I feel so sorry for the people at Blizzard, working on a Sunday Morning, trying to fix an issue that is obviously larger than they thought it would be. I also feel sorry for the other people who, like me, have their WoW time planned out for today because they have “real lives” during the week. Some of the posts are angry, some of them pitiful, some are actually begging, “Please, Blizzard, let me play my game. I’ll do anything you ask!” It all reminds me of drug addicts begging for a hook-up. It’s just a game. Sometimes, we forget that. We get completely absorbed with the different world, the adventure, the friendships, and the feeling of being someone else. I could write an entire article on the psychology of WoW and why it is so satisfying to play. But, right now, I think I’ll find something more practical to do, like go mop that kitchen floor. Maybe by the time I’m done, Blizzard will have the problem fixed and I can log onto my game. Just maybe.